A ROCKY FOUNDATION

                                                                 An amateur photographer was invited to dinner by a friend. He took along a few pictures to show the hostess. She looked at the photos and commented "these are very good! You must have a good camera”. He did not make any comment. Later as he was leaving to go home he said to her, "that was a really delicious meal! You must have some very good pots." The book of Acts represents the origin and progress of Christianity from the capital of Judaism to the capital of heathenism. We see the Church rising into existence first among the Jews and later the Gentiles. It sweeps majestically from Jerusalem until it gains a foothold in Rome, the great capital of the ancient world. Acts is the history of the planting of the Church among the Jews by Peter and amon...

  Missionary John Paton never forgot his father’s deeply ingrained habits of daily devotions. Day after day, he would hear his father praying in the next room of the little cottage where he lived, and even as a boy of six, he noticed the bright countenance his father perpetually wore. He later said that while the outside world might not understand the light on his father’s face, "we children knew that it was a reflection of the Divine Presence in which his life was lived."  Paton recalled, "Never in temple or cathedral, or mountain, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and would shut itself up once again in that sanctuary closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all ...

        There is a story about a humble monk walking with a Roman Catholic cardinal at a time in the Middle Ages when the Roman Catholic church was at its zenith of power, prestige and wealth. The monk became dazed as was the queen of Sheba, when she had been dazzled with the riches of Solomon's kingdom. The cardinal pointed to the opulent surroundings and said to the monk, "We no longer have to say, silver and gold I do not have." The monk replied, "but neither can you say, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." In Acts 3:1-8 we find the record of the first miracle performed by the Church . Jesus was now in heaven, but we see him continuing to do, through his body the Church, what he had “began to do and to teach” while on earth (Acts 1:1-2). In this miracle we see him meeting a human need and as a result attracting many to his kingdom. Peter and John are the instrument of his will and his power . Peter and John were going up to the t...